Allegations against court officials must be substantiated; baseless claims undermine court integrity.

CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE BIBEK CHAUDHURI ORAL ORDER

3 12-12-2025 The instant writ petition was fixed on the 3rd of December, 2025, at the top of the list vide order dated 27th of November, 2025. On 27th of November, 2025, the Court Master attached to this Court was on leave. The record was sent to the office. On 3rd of December, 2025, the case was not listed as per the direction of this Court. Thereafter, on 5th of December, 2025, upon mentioning, the case was listed under the heading “Admission” at the top of the list in serial no. 82. It is to be noted that the case was not listed under the heading “Fresh Cases” because the list was prepared by the office, and without considering the order dated 27th of November, 2025, the case was fixed under the heading “Admission.”

2. Subsequently, on three occasions, the petitioner mentioned the case for preponement. The case could not be preponed because of the fact that huge number of mentioning slips were pending for listing.

3. Today, Mr. Kumar Jay, learned Advocate for the petitioner, has mentioned the matter of renewing the same prayer to take up the hearing of the case out of turn. When this Court pointed out that there are eight new matters specially listed for hearing and it is not possible to take the matter today, a junior Advocate standing by the side of Mr. Kumar Jay, Advocate, started telling the Court that on 5th of December 2025, he personally requested the Court Master to prepone the case on the strength of mentioning slip, which was accepted by the Court, but the Court Master refused to prepone the case, saying that thousands of mentioning slips are lying pending.

4. Subsequently, after the Court hours, he met the Court Master in the Court Masters’ Room and requested to prepone the case. Then the Court Master allegedly demanded bribe of Rs. 10,000/- from him to prepone the case.

5. The allegation made by the said learned Advocate against the Court Master took me in utter surprise because from the very beginning, I did not notice that my direction was ever disobeyed by the Court Master attached to this Court. 6. As per the prevalent Rule of listing of cases in the High Court of Patna, the list is prepared by the office of the Registrar List. If there is any direction on any matter to be taken up specially out of turn, it is declared in open Court at the time of mentioning and the Court Master sends the list to the office of the Registrar Listing. Therefore, there is apparently no scope for the Court Master to make any additional alteration in the list of this Court.

7. Moreover, I personally check the list regularly during the period of my judgeship in Patna, I never noticed any dereliction of duty by the Court Master. At the time of such submission made by the said learned Advocate, who even disclosed that he cannot speak in English and he made his submission in local “Dehati” Hindi, the Court room was full with other learned designated Senior Counsels and Advocates but none of them supported the allegation made by the learned Advocate against the Court Master.

8. In my view the allegation is baseless uncalled for and unwarranted only to put pressure upon this Court to hear out the matter by breaking serials of the list. Since a baseless allegation has been made against the Court Master, touching upon the working of this Court, this Court is not inclined to take up and dispose of the matter.

9. Matter be placed before the Hon’ble the Acting Chief Justice for assignment to any other bench.

10. Last but not the least, this Court is of firm view that the allegation against the Court Master is absolutely untrue and baseless. It is not supported by any other Advocate presenting the Court, on the other hand, the learned Advocates are very much satisfied with the work discharged by the Court Master.

11. This note may be placed before the Hon’ble the Acting Chief Justice.

(Bibek Chaudhuri, J)